Business Insider independently confirmed that figure.
After Snap’s stock popped 44 percent on day one, that stake is worth about $720 million, a cool $220 million up. Not bad for a single day.
As Sorkin noted, NBC appears to be the only media company with a strategic stake in Snap so far — the other strategic investors are the tech companies Alibaba and Tencent.
But it certainly isn’t NBC’s only big strategic investment in digital media. In a note to employees that was obtained by Recode’s Peter Kafka, NBCUniversal CEO Steve Burke said the Snap investment fit into a $1.5 billion push into digital businesses. The company invested in BuzzFeed for the second time late last year, bringing its total to $400 million in the company, and it has put $200 million in Vox.
NBC courted Snap CEO Evan Spiegel “for the past year,” CNBC reported. The companies also worked together (with BuzzFeed as well) on the Olympics, which snagged a massive 2 billion Snapchat views.
“Evan Spiegel and his talented team have done an outstanding job building Snap into an extremely innovative and relevant company, attracting a massive, dedicated and young audience,” Burke wrote.
NBC has agreed to hold the shares for at least a year, according to CNBC.
This article was originally published on Business Insider. Copyright 2017.
